Bharatpur: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Bharatpur was the capital of the Jats, a farming people who turned into a kingdom in the 18th century while the Mughal empire was falling apart. Their greatest ruler, Suraj Mal, built Lohagarh, the Iron Fort, and it earned the name in 1805 when the British army failed four times to storm it. This walk goes round and into the fort and the temples of the old town. About two hours on foot; the town is crowded and the streets are not pretty, so take an auto-rickshaw between the fort and the temples.
A short history of Bharatpur
Bharatpur was founded in the first half of the 18th century by the Jat ruler Suraj Mal, who built the Lohagarh Fort, the 'Iron Fort', with thick earthen walls and a wide moat. In 1805 the British general Lord Lake besieged the fort for months and failed to take it. Only in 1826 did the fort fall to the British, and Bharatpur became a princely state under British protection, ruled by Jat princes until Indian independence. The maharajas created artificial marshes near the town for duck shooting, and from these grew Keoladeo National Park, home to hundreds of bird species. In 1985 the park was declared a World Heritage Site.
The ten best sights in Bharatpur
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1Keoladeo National Park
Go at first light, hire a bicycle or a licensed rickshaw at the gate; the best birds are from November to February
2Salim Ali Interpretation CentreJust inside the park gate; ten minutes here tells you what you are looking at on the trail
3Lohagarh FortNot a hilltop castle but a fort of mud walls and a moat in the middle of town; walk in free
4Bharatpur MuseumInside the fort, in the old royal rooms; sculpture from the area and the arms of the Jat kings
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5Jawahar Burj
A bastion on the fort wall; climb it for the view over the town and the moat
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6Ganga Mandir
A sandstone temple to the goddess Ganga by the fort; shoes off at the steps
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7Laxman Temple
The family temple of the Bharatpur kings, with carved pink stone; small and quick
8Deeg Palace and FortThe summer palace of the Bharatpur kings, 35 km north; give it two hours, and avoid midday in May and June
9Fatehpur SikriAkbar’s abandoned red capital, 25 km away; buy the ticket at the gate and ignore the touts at the car park
10Jama Masjid and Salim Chishti’s tombFree and still a working mosque; cover shoulders and legs, shoes are left at the gate
Scan with your phone camera to open the map there
What is an audio walk?
Tours in Bharatpur →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Bharatpur:
Free walking tours in Bharatpur
The iron fort
Bharatpur was the capital of the Jats, a farming people who turned into a kingdom in the 18th century while the Mughal empire was falling apart. Their greatest ruler, Suraj Mal, built Lohagarh, the Iron Fort, and it earned the name in 1805 when the British army failed four times to storm it. This walk goes round and into the fort and the temples of the old town. About two hours on foot; the town is crowded and the streets are not pretty, so take an auto-rickshaw between the fort and the temples.
- Lohagarh Fort · In 1805 Lord Lake besieged the fort for about six weeks and lost thousands of men in four failed assaults; its walls of packed mud absorbed the cannon balls that would have broken stone. In the end the British settled for a treaty, and Lohagarh was one of the few forts in India they never took by force in that war.
- Mathura Gate · The old town was ringed by a wall with gates named after the cities they faced, and this one looks north towards Mathura. The road beyond it leads to Deeg and to the Krishna country of Braj, the land the Jat kings saw themselves as guarding.
- Jawahar Burj · Jawahar Singh, Suraj Mal's son, raided Delhi in 1765, and this bastion was raised to mark that victory over the Mughals. The coronations of later Bharatpur rulers were held here.
- Bharatpur Museum · The museum fills the Kamra Khas, the private rooms of the kings inside the fort. Besides weapons and paintings it holds sculpture found in the villages of the district, some of it more than 1,500 years old.
- Ganga Mandir · Building began in 1845 under Maharaja Balwant Singh and took several generations to finish. A white marble image of the goddess Ganga riding a crocodile, her mount, stands inside.
- Laxman Temple · Laxman, Rama's loyal brother, is the family deity of the Bharatpur kings. Temples to Laxman alone are rare in India; this one is covered in fine carving in the local pink sandstone.
The birds of the maharajas
Keoladeo began as a depression flooded by a dam that Suraj Mal built in the 1760s, and the kings of Bharatpur turned it into one of the great duck shoots of the British Empire. Today it is a World Heritage site and among the richest bird parks in Asia, with some 370 species recorded. Cars are not allowed inside: you go on foot, by bicycle or in a cycle rickshaw whose driver doubles as a guide. A morning of about four hours along the one main road; bring binoculars and water, and start at the gate at sunrise.
- Salim Ali Interpretation Centre · Salim Ali, the 'birdman of India', studied and ringed birds at Bharatpur for decades and pressed for the shooting to end. The centre named after him explains the wetland and its seasons before you go in.
- Keoladeo National Park · A stone near the old shooting grounds records the bags of the viceroys; the biggest, in 1938, was over 4,000 birds in a single day for Lord Linlithgow's party. Shooting stopped in the early 1970s, and the park became a World Heritage site in 1985.
- Keoladeo watch tower · From here you see the heronries in the acacia trees standing in the water, where painted storks, egrets and cormorants nest by the thousand after the monsoon. The chicks are in the nests from about September to November.
- Python Point · Indian rock pythons spend the cool winter days lying in the sun at the mouths of old porcupine burrows here. In the middle of the day in December and January you have a fair chance of seeing one.
- Seetharam Temple · The park takes its name from an old temple of Shiva, Keoladeo, inside it; "ghana" means dense, for the thick forest that once covered the area. This temple of Sita and Rama sits by the road at the park's northern edge.
- Bandh Baretha · The Bharatpur rulers dammed the Kakund river here in the second half of the 19th century to water their land. The reservoir became a royal hunting reserve and is now a bird sanctuary that sees a fraction of Keoladeo's visitors.
Fountains, a red city and Krishna’s hill
Bharatpur sits where three worlds meet: the Jat kingdom, the Mughal heartland around Agra and Braj, the country of Krishna's childhood. A day by car can touch all three. Go south first to Fatehpur Sikri, the city Akbar built and left within fifteen years, then north to the Jat summer palace at Deeg, and finish at Govardhan, where Hindu tradition places one of Krishna's best-known deeds. About 150 km in all; start early, as Fatehpur Sikri is hot by eleven.
- Buland Darwaza · Akbar built this gate, about 54 metres high, after his conquest of Gujarat in 1573. An inscription on it quotes a saying attributed to Jesus: the world is a bridge, pass over it but build no house on it.
- Jama Masjid and Salim Chishti’s tomb · Akbar had no surviving son until the Sufi Salim Chishti, who lived at Sikri, foretold one; the boy born in 1569 was named Salim and became the emperor Jahangir. The saint's white marble tomb stands in the mosque courtyard, and people still tie threads on its screens to ask for a child.
- Diwan-i Khas · The hall of private audience is one room around a single carved pillar, with walkways running from its top to the corners. It is thought that Akbar sat on the platform at the centre for debates between scholars of different faiths.
- Deeg Fort · Deeg was the first capital of the Jats before Bharatpur, and Suraj Mal built its palaces in the 18th century as a monsoon retreat. The garden is laid with hundreds of fountains, fed from a tank on the roof, that are run only on a few festival days a year.
- Kusum Sarovar · The sandstone cenotaph on the bank was built by Jawahar Singh for his father Suraj Mal, killed in battle in 1763. The painted ceilings inside show scenes from the life of Krishna and from Suraj Mal's court.
- Manasi Ganga · The story says Krishna lifted the whole Govardhan hill on one finger and held it for seven days as an umbrella over the people of Braj, to shelter them from the rain sent by the god Indra. This lake in the town is where the walk round the hill begins and ends.
Getting to Bharatpur and getting around
- Bharatpur Junction · On the Delhi–Mumbai main line; fast trains from Delhi take about three hours
- Hiradas bus station · State buses to Deeg, Jaipur and Agra; for the park, the Saras Circle stop is closer
- Agra Airport · About an hour away, with few domestic flights; most people arrive by train or by road from Delhi
Cheap eats in Bharatpur
Bharatpur is not a food town, and outside the hotels near the park most eating is in simple dhabas: dal, a vegetable, rotis straight off the griddle and sweet milky chai. The Braj country to the north is a land of milk, and its sweets — peda, rabri, kheer — are made from slowly reduced milk. Most of the region eats vegetarian, so ask before assuming there is meat on the menu.
- City Spicy Dosa Factory · Dosas and South Indian snacks near Saras Circle, about ₹80-200
- The Birder’s Inn · Hotel restaurant near the park gate, a plate of dal and roti about ₹250-400
- Ajay Restaurant · Thali and chai under Fatehpur Sikri’s gate, about ₹150-300
- Alay Palace Restaurant · Rooftop lunch by the mosque gate, mains about ₹150-300
- Brijwasi Centrum · Vegetarian restaurant in Mathura; thalis and Mathura peda, about ₹150-300
- Jai Gurudev Dhaba · Roadside dhaba on the Mathura side, dal and paratha about ₹100-200
Museums in Bharatpur
- Bharatpur Museum · Royal rooms, arms and local sculpture inside the fort
- Salim Ali Interpretation Centre · Displays on the wetland and its birds at the park gate
- Diwan-i Khas · Akbar’s debating hall, with its single carved pillar
- Birbal’s House · Richly carved two-storey house inside the palace complex
Nature and day trips near Bharatpur
- Keoladeo National Park · Wetland, woods and grassland; winter is the season
- Keoladeo watch tower · Over the heronries; best with binoculars in the morning
- Python Point · Pythons basking by their burrows on winter days
- Bandh Baretha · Big reservoir with water birds and hardly anyone else
- Radha Kund · Holy tank near Govardhan; very busy on festival nights
Things to do in Bharatpur with kids
- Keoladeo by bicycle · Flat, car-free and easy; children’s bikes can be hired at the gate
- Jawahar Burj · Climb the old bastion for the view of the moat
- Hiran Minar · A tower studded with stone elephant tusks at Fatehpur Sikri
- Prem Mandir · Lit-up marble temple and statues of Krishna stories after dark
Where to eat in Bharatpur
- The Birder’s Inn · Long-standing hotel restaurant by the park; Indian and simple continental
- Kiran Villa Palace · Garden dining in a small heritage hotel
- Surya Vilas Palace · An old royal guest house with a restaurant, quiet and green
- Hotel Saras · The state tourism hotel at Saras Circle; plain Indian food at fair prices
- Alay Palace Restaurant · A rooftop table to rest after Fatehpur Sikri
Frequently asked questions about Bharatpur
What is there to see in Bharatpur?
The top sights in Bharatpur are Keoladeo National Park, Salim Ali Interpretation Centre and Lohagarh Fort. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Bharatpur?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Bharatpur without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Bharatpur?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Bharatpur, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The iron fort.
How do you get to Bharatpur and get around?
The main ways are Bharatpur Junction, Hiradas bus station and Agra Airport. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Bharatpur, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Bharatpur that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Bharatpur for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.